Revenge

by Fiona McIntosh

  If Gidyon had put his hand into his pocket he would have been shocked by the sizzling heat pulsing from his stone. But he did not. Instead, his free hand steadied Lauryn on the slippery path as they nervously approached the figure in the doorway. The old girl had her hand to her mouth and was openly weeping at the sight of the two approaching. She opened her arms and clasped them both to her in a fierce hug; they had to bend to reach her, she was so tiny.

  Wiping her eyes, she beamed up at the tall pair standing in front of her. ‘Welcome home, children.’

  Gidyon, now entirely confused, cleared his throat, uncertain of what to say. He looked over at Lauryn, who appeared equally dumbstruck but wore an angry expression, her green eyes glittering and her lips tight.

  The old woman shooed them into the kitchen where a fire blazed merrily. A pot simmered on the stove and the enticing aroma of a stew invited a predictable growl of hunger from Gidyon’s stomach. She made them sit down, muttering comforting words the whole time, but the happy scene lasted only a few brief moments before Lauryn’s short fuse exploded.

  She pulled off the hood of her wet cloak, revealing a small square of white Gyrton linen which covered part of her hair. ‘Look, what is going on here? I’ve been dragged all the way up here to see a grandmother I barely know. A chatty stranger picks me up at the coach point, leaves me in a smoky tavern with his wife who doesn’t talk at all, and then I’m introduced to you!’ She glared at Gidyon. ‘You, apparently, are a cousin I’ve never seen or heard of in my life!’

  It seemed to Gidyon that the tirade was going to continue long and loudly, but the old lady put both hands into a prayer position and touched her fingertips to her lips. It was a gentle motion and yet so sombre that it made Lauryn clamp her mouth shut with a snort of exasperation.

  Gidyon cleared his throat awkwardly for the second time. He needed to say something but he was not sure what. Lauryn was still bristling with resentment, which he did not share, but it was clear some explanation was required. He ran his hand through his wet, untidy hair.

  The old girl smiled. ‘So like your father, my boy,’ she whispered.

  Like his father? Gidyon was baffled. He had liked the old woman straightaway but he was not at all sure about all this mystery.

  ‘Um…I’m sorry, what should I call you?’

  ‘Call me Sorrel. You may feel more comfortable using my name.’ Her warm smile bathed him with security.

  He pressed on. ‘Sorrel. Something tells me I do know you but I honestly don’t remember you. Perhaps you could explain all this.’ He looked over at Lauryn. ‘We…well, er…that is, I was told you were gravely ill and wanted to see me before you er…passed away. I don’t know what to think now. I have no relatives and know of no cousin. I’m not sure why Master Galbryth brought us both here, or why you are welcoming us as though we should know each other…’

  ‘I will explain everything. But first, please, you are both chilled and probably hungry after your long journeys. May I serve you the meal I have cooked for you?’

  Gidyon regarded her properly. Silvery grey hair was neatly caught up behind her head. Her round, kindly face held nothing but warmth and reassurance, which her slightly rheumy brown eyes echoed. She looked a century in age to his young eyes but although she seemed a little frail she did not appear to be sick. What could he lose by accepting a hot meal after six days on dried meat and stale bread? She had said she would explain everything afterwards. He gave her a grin and stood up, offering to help.

  Lauryn sagged on the other side of the table. She was hungry and she was tired and her anger was doing nothing except costing her more energy. The old woman obviously meant no harm; she was doing her utmost to be kind and Lauryn felt the least she could do was to accept her hospitality. Gidyon, she noticed, was one of those detestably nice boys typical of the Ferenyans. He seemed content to go along with this charade; though inwardly she acknowledged he was handling the situation with more dignity than she was. The Prioress would not be pleased with her behaviour. Now he was helping the old lady to serve dinner. He was handsome though, she would give him that. The Prioress would not like her thinking of handsome men either. She had plans for Lauryn to take her vows very soon and then she could trap her for good. She pushed away thoughts of the convent; the current situation was daunting enough.

  The meal was delicious, like no other stew either child had tasted, and Gidyon made all the right noises to a beaming Sorrel, who took great pleasure in watching them enjoy her food. Even Lauryn had to admit it was a superb meal and the home-baked bread that accompanied it was unbelievably good. Hot fruit pie came out next, with lashings of rich farm cream.

  The hungry children seemed unaware of Sorrel’s penetrating gaze; she took in every detail as they ate.

  Gidyon was his father all over again; he had inherited so many of Tor’s physical traits. The girl, meanwhile, was full of repressed energy; so reminiscent of her mother. She did not yet show her mother’s astonishing beauty, but she would. Beneath the extra flesh, Sorrel could see Alyssandra Qyn’s exquisite features.

  She opened a link and probed. The boy looked up from his pie. He smiled but looked puzzled, as though he had been disturbed. Ah, he is perceptive, she noted, even worlds away from Tallinor. That is promising. In Lauryn she met strength. The girl had shielded her mind without being aware she could. This augured well for the test to come. Sorrel dared not probe any further at this stage, lest she harm them. The pair had struck up a quiet conversation about their respective Orders so she chose that moment to clear the dishes and give them a few minutes to relax. It would be their last quiet time before what lay ahead.

  She shook her head thoughtfully and Gidyon, ever sharp, noticed.

  ‘Can I help, Sorrel?’

  ‘No, my child. Stay by the fire and talk with Lauryn. I’ll just clear the table and join you soon enough.’

  Lauryn had already curled up by the fire and was soaking up its warmth like a cat. Gidyon sat down in the battered but comfortable chair opposite.

  ‘What do you think?’ he whispered, cocking his head towards Sorrel’s disappearing back.

  ‘Absolutely bonkers. What are we doing here? Who are you? Who in hell’s flames is she?’ Lauryn’s tone was vicious.

  He made a soft sound of admonishment at her curse. He was actually quite impressed with her ability to swear so confidently. It was enough to make old Abbot Muggerydge’s toes curl up in his slippers.

  ‘Well, yes, this is all very confusing, I’ll admit, but she seems harmless and we’re stuck here for the night, so let’s just go along with it and we’ll work out what to do in the morning.’

  ‘How do you know she’s not going to slip us a nice sleeping draught and bury us out on the moors?’ Her eyes beneath all that plumpness were dazzling, he thought, as he openly laughed at her notion.

  ‘Oh, it’s lovely to hear laughter in this quiet old cottage,’ said Sorrel, who had returned soundlessly to the fireside.

  Gidyon pulled a face as though he’d been caught. Lauryn giggled in spite of her mood. She could not help but like him.

  Sorrel made herself comfortable in the other chair and handed down a cushion for Lauryn. She cradled a mug of herb tea in her hands and considered the pair solemnly.

  ‘I have a lot to explain to you both tonight. The story I’m going to tell you is long. I beg you to hear it all and not to interrupt me, for it is vital you hear it in its entirety and understand its import.’ Sorrel’s even tone expressed the gravity of her words. ‘It is going to challenge you, and perhaps frighten you, but there is nothing to fear and I am here to protect you both.’

  She paused dramatically, eyeing them both. Their eyes were wide with astonishment.

  ‘Now hear me,’ she began, as the flames danced and the rain drummed its rhythm on the small windows.

  They said not a word until her tale was told.

  When Sorrel finally stopped speaking, all that could be heard was the monotonous drip of water outside a
nd the wind. It had stopped raining but neither Gidyon nor Lauryn had noticed when. Hours had passed and Gidyon no longer felt sleepy; he was more confused than ever but he was also excited. It all seemed far-fetched but the old woman certainly sounded convincing.

  It was Lauryn who broke the silence. ‘And you really expect us to believe that we are brother and sister? That we were born to enchanted parents who live in another world? And that you are some sort of sorceress who magicked us here?’

  Lauryn was chilled to see the old girl nod. She hated her in that moment. She did not want to believe one word of this tall tale and yet it resonated too strongly with all her doubts and fears. Her alienation, her need for family, her desperation to know who she was and why she had been abandoned so young. The very mention of another world rang uncomfortably true in her mind; she refused to accept it but at the same time it felt like a relief. She was not strange; she really did not belong at Gyrton after all.

  ‘Are you mad?’ she asked Sorrel coldly.

  ‘I wish I were, Lauryn, and then you could go back to your scriptorium, Gidyon could return to his precious Blues—which he will surely attain—and we could all get on peacefully with our lives. If I were mad I would not have to face the huge task ahead of us.’

  ‘Us! You speak as though I have no choice.’ Lauryn’s voice was raised now.

  ‘But you don’t, my girl. Your father has called you home.’

  ‘My father!’ she spat, ‘I have no father, old woman. If I did, he would be with me; he would not have given me up.’

  Sorrel’s calm enraged her more. ‘He had no choice. We were all about to die at the hand of Goth if we did not get you to safety.’

  Gidyon decided that if he did not intervene, Lauryn might slap the old girl or run out screaming into the blackness of the night. She was trembling with a rage which threatened to boil over.

  ‘Lauryn—’

  ‘What?’ she hurled back at him, daring him to try and placate her.

  ‘I say we make Sorrel prove it,’ he said quietly, not looking at the old woman but staring straight into the pretty eyes of the hard-breathing girl next to him. ‘She needs to show us something which links us to this bizarre tale. I agree with you—it sounds ludicrous—but somehow I don’t think Sorrel is mad and, to tell the truth, I’ve never felt like I belonged completely in the Order. I’m happy there but something inside me begs to hear her out; something inside me is tugging towards belief—as much as I fight it.’

  He thought Lauryn might snap. She looked to Sorrel and back to Gidyon, her eyes blazing angrily.

  ‘Are you hearing yourself? A few hours ago you were in a tavern flirting with some girl serving ale. Now you’re prepared to what…? Be transported through worlds? You’re as mad as she is, Gidyon.’

  She was getting sulky now. He preferred sulkiness to fury because it meant she was listening, however much she might hate what he was saying. He waited. Sorrel looked as though she had nodded off to sleep.

  Lauryn finally looked at him. ‘All right. She has to prove it.’

  He smiled at her but she looked away again quickly.

  ‘Sorrel…Lauryn has agreed. Prove to us that we are brother and sister. Show us something which links us back to your story of Torkyn and Alyssa.’

  The old woman opened her eyes and regarded them both kindly. ‘Gidyon, tell me what you brought with you on this journey, other than your clothes.’

  It was such an odd question that he blinked a couple of times, as though trying to fathom it. Then he shrugged. ‘Well…er, charcoal, a fresh tablet of rag paper…there’s nothing else. I packed very light, Sorrel,’ he said apologetically.

  ‘Think harder. And whilst you do, perhaps I can ask you the same question, Lauryn.’

  Lauryn sneered. ‘I brought nothing but a fresh gown and a poetry book I have no intention of reading. You lose, Sorrel.’

  Gidyon thought back as hard as he could. He pushed his hand through his dark hair and felt the bruise where he had banged his head on the bed looking for his paper…and then he remembered his stone.

  ‘Well, I don’t know if this counts, Sorrel, but I did bring along this,’ he said, reaching into his pocket and retrieving the warm sphere. Its colours looked somehow brighter to him, almost as though they were moving inside.

  ‘Oh!’ Lauryn said and then wished she had not because both of them turned to look at her.

  The old woman was smiling and nodding at her. ‘And how about you, Lauryn?’ she encouraged.

  Against her better judgement, Lauryn reached into her pocket and pulled out her stone. It too was warm and the colours were brighter than they had ever been at the convent.

  The two children stared at each other’s palms. Gidyon could not believe what he was seeing. His stone was the only thing he had from his childhood; he could not remember a time he had been without it and, if he was forced to, he would have admitted that he had always considered it his talisman. His special possession; nothing else like it in the whole world. Except this girl had an identical one!

  Lauryn was baffled too. ‘I was told this stone was stitched into my clothes when I arrived at the boarding school.’ She was careful not to mention which item of clothing. That should trick the old witch.

  Sorrel smiled as she remembered. ‘Yes, my girl, I stitched it into one of your mittens. You said that if you could hold it for the whole journey and keep it close, you might just be able to make it without crying all the way.’

  Lauryn thought it unlikely she could hate the old woman any more than she did at that moment. It all came flooding back to her: standing on a frozen road, the wind biting through her cloak as she clung to her grandmother and begged her not to send her away. She had not remembered that scene in over a decade. She had shut it away so tightly, it had never been allowed to enter her consciousness. A few minutes ago she would have sworn blind she had never seen this woman before and yet here it was, roaring back in painful detail.

  Gidyon was experiencing something similar. As Sorrel told Lauryn about her stone, he suddenly remembered the small child he used to play with. A little girl. A bright, cheeky, funny little girl who hugged him and told him she loved him every day. How could he have forgotten that? Why had he forgotten it? That had been his sister. He was there at the roadside when she was crying; they were all saying goodbye. He was leaving as well, to go to the monastery, but his coach was departing later. He could remember it now as though it was yesterday.

  Gidyon felt suddenly choked. ‘Lauryn…I…I do remember you.’

  ‘No!’ she cried. ‘It’s not possible. We are not brother and sister!’

  ‘You are more than brother and sister; you were born just a minute or two apart,’ said Sorrel seriously. Her face no longer held its genial smile. ‘Your mother gave birth to Gidyon first. Torkyn Gynt, your father, held you, Gidyon, and he wept as he named you. And then you, Lauryn. You were so special to him. He said you were more beautiful than anything he had ever seen.’

  Lauryn swallowed hard. No one had ever told her she was even vaguely pretty and now here was Sorrel telling her the father she had craved so long had considered her the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

  It was as though Sorrel could read her thoughts. ‘You know, your mother is like a doll, a fragile, exquisitely beautiful porcelain doll, Lauryn, and when you were born you looked just like her.’

  It was too much for Lauryn. She began to weep. Gidyon reached over, took her in his arms and hugged her tightly. He wept with her. She thought she could never feel this way again. She had family. Someone thought she was beautiful. Her own brother was holding her, comforting her.

  Sorrel let them weep. It was an enormous shock for them. She felt grave fears for the pair and yet she knew they had what it would take to overcome the trials that lay ahead. She sensed their strength. Which was why she could tell them the rest when they turned their attention back to her, both looking at her from red-rimmed eyes.

  ‘There is more,’ she said
and was relieved to see them nod, albeit reluctantly.

  ‘Your father had no idea where I would take you on that wonderful yet terrifying day of your birth. He had to trust me. All he could give me as a token were the three Stones.’

  Gidyon interrupted. ‘You say there are three?’

  Sorrel nodded. ‘The third is safe, Gidyon. Fret not.’

  Lauryn snuggled closer to her brother and asked Sorrel to continue.

  ‘I believe your father imagined we would simply flee the region and get as far away from Chief Inquisitor Goth as possible. In escaping, we would not only save your lives but your mother’s as well; even possibly his own.’ She waited for the obvious question. It was Lauryn who asked it.

  ‘And my mother agreed to this?’

  ‘Your mother was bleeding to death. She would almost certainly have died before we could deliver you if we had not received help. We called upon the god of the forest, Darmud Coril, and he weaved a powerful enchantment to heal her. His spell put her into the deepest of sleeps and both of you arrived within minutes. Poor Alyssa, she never knew of your existence. Does not, I imagine, to this day.’

  The children looked stunned but Sorrel misunderstood, believing them to be shocked by the fact that Alyssa did not know they lived.

  ‘Our mother is alive?’ whispered Gidyon.

  ‘Why, yes. As is your father.’

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Lauryn.

  ‘Your mother lives because Darmud Coril saved her life. I would have felt it if she were no longer alive. How do I know your father lives? Because of her,’ she said and pointed towards the fireplace.

  Gidyon and Lauryn swung around and were confronted by a floating, silvery-green apparition, who smiled sadly back at them. Sorrel hoped they would not be scared. Neither was. They stared in wonder.

  ‘Her name is Yargo and she is a messenger from your father. She has taken a long time to find you. Already, Tallinese years have passed since he sent her.’ Sorrel tried to explain further. ‘Time passes strangely between our worlds. I hope I am right in calculating that for every year in Tallinor, almost two and a half moon cycles pass here. You children have been gone six Tallinese summers but you are already fifteen years old in this world. The Light knows what has been happening since Yargo left your father. Which is why we must hurry. He will already have set his plan in motion if he has asked for your return. He could be in trouble, or he could simply be waiting.’